Man Gets 25 Years to Life in Slaying of 9-Year-Old Son

A Sylmar man was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison Wednesday for killing his 9-year-old son in what authorities described as a failed murder-suicide attempt.

Ronald Rennie, 38, was sentenced by Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Judith Meisels Ashmann after his no-contest plea last month to one count of first-degree murder in the death of his son, Christopher.

Prosecutors said Rennie, a former owner of a Thai restaurant who was divorced from a Thai immigrant, wanted to kill himself and be reborn as a native of Thailand. He wrote to a friend that he didn’t want to leave his son “alone in the world.”

During Father’s Day weekend in June, 1988, Rennie’s son visited him and was given dozens of tranquilizers and antibiotics, prosecutors said. Rennie took the same drugs and then set off nine canisters of pesticide in his Ralston Avenue townhouse, prosecutors said.

An attorney received a letter from Rennie outlining the suicide plot and called police. The boy was found dead in his father’s bed and Rennie was found beside him in a semiconscious state. The boy died from the combination of drugs and fumes from the insecticide, officials said.

Despite the evidence in the case and his own no-contest plea, Rennie denied killing his son in a probation report prepared for his sentencing.

“I know I did nothing to cause my son’s death,” Rennie said in the report. “I’m innocent, not simply not guilty.”

Rennie’s attorney, Harry E. Weiss, said his client pleaded no contest to the charge because he could not prove his innocence and did not wish to risk a life sentence without parole if found guilty during a trial.

Under the sentencing, Rennie could be paroled in 12 to 15 years. In exchange for his no-contest plea, prosecutors had agreed to drop a special allegation that he used poison to commit the slaying, which would have called for no parole. During the sentencing hearing, Weiss asked Ashmann to place Rennie on probation rather than in a prison.

But Ashmann said the evidence in the case, which prosecutors said included letters written by Rennie in which he told acquaintances of his plans to kill his son, showed Rennie’s involvement in his son’s death. She rejected Weiss’ request for probation.

“I certainly think this is a case where probation would be inappropriate,” Ashmann said. “I believe he is a threat to the community.”